Open Console Sesame!
Posted at February 7, 2006 02:17 PM - Category: Ideas
The XBox 360 has made some pretty major changes to how I view a console system. The biggest reason is the persistent online component in the Dashboard. In there, you have persistent scoring, downloadable demos, add-ons to your games, even full games in the Live Arcade. This new distribution model for content has encouraged me to play the console more and feel more involved with the overall gamer community. I'm no longer disconnected from others who are enjoying the same game.
What I think this leads into is what J Allard said recently: "We're going to take on the Wikipedia model." That means that they're going to allow gamers to create content in addition to just providing new content over the Dashboard. So, not only is there a connected-ness from the persistent and multiplayer elements of XBox Live, there will now the a connected-ness from the content that is played as well. I think this is potentially huge.
Back up a few years and try to remember the PS2 Linux kit. It was a great idea that really never got off the ground, IMHO. For something that was openly provided, it seems like people were concentrating more on getting it running on the XBox, but that's more of a familiarity of hardware thing. In any case, the big thing was the ability to make your own games. It's what people have been fighting to do on their XBox's, PSPs, DS's, and other consoles for a while now. Most are pretty successful in terms of getting the job done, but the community behind most of them is "underground".
What I would like to see happen is console makers opening up the hardware a bit. Provide a limited development environment to allow people to make their own games. They can mandate the licensing so that content produced under this "SDK" would have to be free. If they want to change, they'll have to get licensed, simple as that. But it could be a huge gateway for smaller developers to get their products into the Live Arcade. Games that would never have been heard of could get the revenue and recognition that they deserve. Perhaps a part of this could be a very dumbed-down, simplistic game maker. Sort of like the RPG makers you can buy, but with much more freedom in terms of content. I could see some really fun games coming out of that. Imagine an XBox User-Made Games section to your console with a top 10 list of games. I think it would be pretty sweet and yet another reason to keep playing.
Peak-Based Provisioning
Posted at September 4, 2005 02:00 AM - Category: ASObill
I've been extremely distracted by my colocation plans, so ASObill development has been halted for the moment. However, that hasn't stopped me from thinking about it. The newest idea I've come up with: peak-Based provisioning.
Most other billing software out there that includes control panel integration fills up servers based on a set number of maximum accounts. As a result, the assumption is made that the activity and load generated by each account is constant. In reality, load varies greatly among accounts. So, my initial plan was to build in a load monitoring system into ASObill to monitor load and fill up servers based on system load. This solves the basic problem of overfilling servers and allows for much more automated account provisioning.
However, it's somewhat inefficient because sites often follow a curve of activity between day and night for whatever group of visitors to that site are most popular. Normally, servers are most active during the day in the US and the least active at night. However, there are many sites that peak at different times of the day. And, even in the load-based provisioning system, there is no accounting for this difference in activity.
Improved efficiency in systems would be gained if a site owner could select the time their site is most active and be placed on a server that has the least amount of activity during that time of day. Both sides benefit in this format. The host gets more sites per server or better use of resources on each machine, and the site owner gets a site that is faster when the power is needed most.
Using the order modifier system I've got in place within ASObill, this sort of stuff is simple to implement (although, the math isn't going to be that simple...). I love all this cool stuff I'm building within the ASObill framework. Almost more than the end-user application itself :D
Forki
Posted at September 1, 2005 12:21 PM - Category: Ideas
I haven't used this Ideas category yet, so I figured I should get something in here to fill that gap.
Two particular website formats I really like are forums and wikis. Both are intended serve their own unique purpose. Forums are for discussion and debate, by a which a community almost always forms. Wikis are for presenting information and exploration of that information. I've spent quite some time just clicking around linked articles on Wikipedia going from Mozart to Portland cement.
However, as I'm sure anyone who has used a search engine more than twice knows, forums also serve as a great information resource, as well. In almost all discussion topics, information is exchanged and absorbed by everyone that reason. Unfortunately, there is often a lot of filtering that must be done to skip over useless posts and to determine which information is correct. On topics with several pages, this becomes a rather daunting task.
So, I propose this: Forums + Wiki = Forki
I don't have all the answers and a perfect idea of how this would work (this is the Ideas category, not Solutions), but here are some general thoughts:
- We'd be combining the linking pages setup of a Wiki with the discussion topic nature of a forum. Posts would be linked together by topic and by linked keywords.
- A topic would include a header section that contains all the useful information for a topic. The decision of what is useful is determined by the readers. There can be a button next to each post or paragraph that can be used to elect information to be included in the header section.
- A minimum number of votes would be needed to elect information, to avoid spammers and stupid people.
- Information can be voted off the header section after a certain number of negative votes.
- There can also be a threshold for making information "debated". So, if there are 20 votes for the usefulness of a particular piece of information and 15 against, it would get a debated status so that other readers know the reliability of information.
It's sort of a wiki with comments, but the information comes from those comments, not direct edits. The header doesn't necessarily have to be above the first post, it could easily be a sidebar next to the discussion comments. You could also work up a system where posters who have more useful information get weighted upwards when they post information that is voted up.
It's a skeleton of an idea, really, but I think it would be cool to see someone implement something like this.
